


A Great and Gruesome Height

by thefairfleming



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefairfleming/pseuds/thefairfleming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU (or Future!Fic). Rickon is now Lord of Winterfell, and Sansa brings him to the Wall where Jon is acting as Lord Commander. However, that may not be her only reason for visiting Castle Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Great and Gruesome Height

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the GoT Kink Meme with the prompt, "Jon/Sansa, sex at the top of the Wall."

"Where is she?"

Sam and Rickon sit at the table in Jon's chambers, playing _cyvasse._ A fire crackles happily in the hearth, but the chair beside it is empty save for a piece of needlework, folded carefully in the seat.

"Who?" Sam asks, and Jon, who had been hanging up his cloak, freezes. Sam knows very well who he's talking about, which can only mean he is stalling for time. And if Sam is stalling for time, he's nervous.

"Sam?" Jon asks, flexing his fingers.

"Sh-she wanted to see the top of the Wall," Sam offers, and Jon has to work very hard to keep himself from shouting.

"And you let her?"

"You can't _let_ Sansa do anything," Rickon observes, never taking his eyes off the game. "She just does things, you know that."

 _Too well_ , Jon reflects. Her presence here is a testament to that fact.

To Sam, he asks, "Why didn't you go with her?"

"You told me to stay with him!" Sam bleats, pointing at Rickon, and Jon sighs, sweeping his cloak back over his shoulders.

"Just tell me you didn't let her go alone."

Now Sam smiles with relief. "Of course not. Satin is with her."

Jon has no answer for that, but perhaps he does let the door slam a little too hard behind him.

As the cage makes its way slowly to the top of the Wall ( _too slowly. Gods, has it always been this slow?_ ) Jon thinks about what he will say to her. He understands why she brought Rickon here, and he appreciates it. As Lord of Winterfell, Rickon should know about the Watch, should understand its inner workings. But there's no reason for her to stay here as well. She should go back to Winterfell. She _must_ go back to Winterfell.

For her safety. For his sanity.

He hears her before he sees her. Jon has barely taken three steps out of the cage when the wind carries her high, sweet laugh to his ears. It's like a fist in his gut, and he when he finds her, standing in one of the alcoves, her bright head close to Satin's...

"Satin!" he barks, too sharply. The young man's head shoots up, and Jon could swear the red in his cheeks is from more than the cold. "Is there are reason you escorted Lady Sansa here without my permission?"

Satin begins to stutter out an explanation, but Jon cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "Enough. Get back down below."

"Don't punish him too severely," Sansa says once Satin has scuttled off. "I asked him to bring me up here."

She's too close to the edge, and Jon wants nothing more than to pull her back. But that will mean putting his hands on her, and he's sworn never to do that again.

"You could've asked me," he tells her, and there's that laugh again.

"You would've said no. And I wanted to see it."

Jon looks around and realizes that their section of the wall is deserted. Perhaps the other men heard how sharply he spoke to Satin and decided to give their Lord Commander some time alone with his...gods, what is she to him now? He know longer knows.

"It's so beautiful," Sansa says, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Do you ever get accustomed to how... _lovely_ it is?"

Her gaze stays on the snow, the edge of the woods, the vast world beyond the Wall. But his eyes never leave her. "No."

Against the black of the sky and the white of the Wall, she is all copper hair and pink cheeks, and when she turns to look at him, her eyes are so blue. _Tully blue,_ he remembers. Robb's eyes. Lady Catelyn's. "I didn't understand how you could bear to come back here, but seeing this...,"

He smiles in spite of himself. They're rare, these glimpses of the Sansa he knew before. Of course that girl would think he was drawn back to the Wall because of its beauty, because of his vows. But then she surprises him by saying, "I suppose if one has to be exiled, there are worse places."

"Exile" is perhaps not the most accurate word, but it's near enough to the truth. When he refused to become Daenerys Targaryen's king, it seemed the safest option was to remove himself from the game altogether. And what better way to do that than to return to the Wall and once again take the black?

He had never told Sansa any of that, but somehow, it seems right that she would know. Whatever else the Vale did to her (and Jon's fists clench at the thought of all it did to her), it turned her into a surprisingly shrewd observer. Sometimes he forgets that, which is another reason she must leave the Wall. Before she can see just how weak he really is where she is concerned.

Sansa turns back to look over the edge. Gloved hands braced on the ice, she leans out, too far for his liking. Without thinking, Jon steps forward and reaches, his palm flattening against her stomach. Even through the layers of her dress and his gloves, he thinks he can feel the warmth of her skin. She turns her head, and their eyes meet. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, and her breath comes out in small white clouds, and Jon jerks his hand back before he can have any other foolish thoughts.

They stand, side by side, staring out over the edge of the Wall. The only sound is the wind and the crackle of flames and the rushing of blood in his ears. Then Sansa sighs. "Jon, we cannot keep pretending it didn't happen."

Jon merely shakes his head. "You should go back."

"Back down below or back to Winterfell?"

"The Wall is no place for women," he tells her, and she quirks a brow.

"It seems to me there've been a great many women here, Lord Snow. Queen Selyse, the red woman. Queen Alysanne...,"

"She had dragons," Jon cannot resist retorting, and Sansa smiles, stepping closer to him.

"Then it's a good thing I have you," she whispers, and suddenly it's a year ago, and he's in Winterfell.

_Drunk on wine, drunk on happiness, drunk on hope. Sansa and Rickon are alive and Winterfell once again belongs to the Starks. He knows he is a Targaryen, but he does know yet what that will mean for him. There is a feast, a meager one, true, but what it lacks in provisions, it makes up for in joy. He dances with Sansa more times than he can count, and then somehow, they are out of the great hall, in a darkened corridor, and she is flushed and breathless, and so lovely he can hardly bear it._

_Her hands are pressed against his cheeks as she searches his face. "You don't look like a dragon," she says at last, and he laughs. And then he is kissing her and she is kissing him back, and everything descends into a kind of sweet madness. Later, the guilt will come. She has known so much brutality in her short life, and she deserves so much more than this. He should've led her back to her chambers, touched her gently, made slow, thorough love to her. Instead, he takes her against the wall of their childhood home, her face buried in the crook of his neck, her name falling from his lips over and over again._

Guilt or no, the memory is enough to make him hard. He has a sudden image of grabbing her and taking her against this Wall.

He moves away before his hands can betray him, facing the wilderness yet again. "Go back to Winterfell," he tells her, his voice harsher than he'd intended.

Years ago, those blue eyes would have filled with tears at being spoken to thus. But now, she simply asks, "Are you ordering me?"

 _No,_ he thinks, hands gripping the ice, hoping the cold will somehow seep into his veins. _I'm begging you._ To her, he says, "The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch cannot order the Lady of Winterfell to do anything."

She doesn't answer for a very long time. When he finally turns to look at her, she's peering over the edge again. In the faint firelight, her hair seems to glow, and he thinks of another bright head, another girl who made him forget. Will this weakness, this wanting, always be a part of him, no matter how many times he recommits himself to his duty?

Finally, she steps back and turns to face him. "Is it true that the wildlings believe in stealing their lovers?"

The question is so unexpected that he wonders if she's somehow read his thoughts. But before he can reply, she steps close to him again. The wind whips her hair, the ends of it brushing his face, and then her hand is there, against his cheek. The leather of her glove is cold, but just as before, he can sense the warmth of her skin underneath.

"Is that what I have to do to you, Jon?" she whispers. "Do I have to steal you?" Her mouth is so close to his, and he can remember how she tasted of wine and sweetness and home...

He closes his eyes. "Sansa...,"

"Because I will," she tells him, and now her hands are gripping the front of his cloak, twisting in the fabric. When he opens his eyes again, there's a fierceness in her face he's never seen before. It reminds him of her mother, no matter how hard he tries not to see the resemblance. "I will steal you from this Wall and take you back home where you belong. With me."

He can't help but smile at her, reaching up to cup her face. "And when Daenerys Targaryen comes to Winterfell with her dragons?"

Her eyes narrow slightly, and her grip on him tightens. "Let her try."

In that moment, Jon is sure he has never wanted anything more than he wants her, and all the reasons he should step away from her- and there are so many reasons- seem to vanish in the cold night air. "It's only the women who are stolen," he tells her softly

"Then steal me, Jon," she murmurs. "Steal m-,"

He does not give her the chance to finish. Covering her mouth with his, he kisses her, pulling her up hard against him. Her hands are still clutching his cloak, and his are tangling in her hair, and _gods,_ he'd only thought he remembered how sweet she tasted.

He doesn't realize he's pushing her backwards until she gasps at the cold of the Wall against her back. Only then does he manage to tear his mouth from hers.

"Sansa," he breathes, but she only catches his lower lip between her teeth, making him groan. As her hands slide underneath his cloak to lay flat against his pounding heart, Jon tries to make himself stop, to go slower, to do this properly this time.

"We shouldn't," is all he can say, even as he ducks his head to kiss her neck, making her sigh and twist against him. "Not here."

"We should," she says, taking his hand and guiding it to her breast. "Here." And then she kisses him again, and he's lost. 

There are layers between them, leather and wool and fur, and Jon knows this is the height of folly, but he cannot seem to stop. He kisses her lips, her neck. His gloved thumb skirts over her nipple, and he feels it harden even under her gown, and when she reaches down to palm him, Jon surges against her. Her other hand begins to gather her skirts, just like she did that first time against Winterfell's stone wall.

Cold and wet seeps into his breeches as he kneels on the ice before her, pushing up her gown. He kisses the inside of her thigh, just above her hose. Her skin is icy and silky, and suddenly he wants to taste all of it, all of her. As he tugs her smallclothes down, she whispers "What are you doing?" sounding unsure for the first time. The thought that he might be the first man ever to do this to her is nearly intoxicating as the scent of her.

When he kisses her there, at the juncture of her thighs, she makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. "You're mad," he hears her say. "Mad, Jon...oh.... _Jon....,"_

He is mad, he thinks, hitching her leg over his shoulder, her heel digging into his back. But then so is she. Seven hells, the whole _world_ is.

So he drives her even madder with his lips and his tongue, until she is panting and shaking, her fingers twisted in his hair. He doesn't dare look up her body because just imagining her, head thrown back against the starry sky, cheeks red with cold and pleasure, eyes closed, is enough to nearly have him spilling in his breeches like a green boy.

Finally, Sansa shudders, the fingers in his hair twisting almost painfully. He presses a kiss to the inside of her knee as he gently eases her leg from his shoulder, intending that to be the end of it.

But then she sinks to the ice, kneeling in front of him, and her arms are around his neck again, her tongue in his mouth, and it is very far from the end of anything.

He still thinks she deserves a bed in a palace, silken sheets on her soft skin, but when she pushes him back and undoes his laces, sinks down on him and makes him hiss at the wet heat of her, he cannot bring himself to feel guilty. Not this time.

They make love there at the edge of the world, the ice freezing his back, even as the warmth of her seems to seep into every bit of him. And yes, she is every bit as beautiful as he'd imagined, framed against the white of the Wall and the black of the sky, rising and falling above him.

He reaches under her skirts and finds that place that makes her shake, his fingers circling and pressing until she gasps and only then does he let himself follow her.

They lie on the Wall, her head tucked under his chin. Her dress is soaked at the knees, and his cloak is slick with melted ice and snow. Jon has the absurd desire to laugh, and she must feel the same since she giggles a little against his chest. "Is that it, then?" she asks, tilting her face up to kiss his ear. "Am I stolen?"

His arms tighten around her. "We both are."


End file.
